Knowledge Management Definitions

3. Introduction

Knowledge management is a management theory which emerged in early 1990s. It seeks to understand the way in which knowledge is created, used and shared within organizations. An objective of mainstream knowledge management is to ensure that the right information is delivered to the right person just in time, in order to take the most appropriate decision. In that sense, knowledge management is not interested in managing knowledge per se, but to relate knowledge and its usage. This leads to Organizational Memory Systems. More recent developments have focused on managing networks (the flow of knowledge rather than knowledge itself) and narrative forms of knowledge exchange.


3.1 Definitions for Knowledge Management

According to T. Davenport (1997) Knowledge Management is the systematic process of finding, selecting, organizing, distilling and presenting information in a way that improves an employee's comprehension in a specific area of interest.

Knowledge Management is a process that helps organizations identify, select, organize, disseminate and transfer important information and expertise that are a part of the organizational memory that typically resides within an organization in an unstructured manner (Gupta et al., 2000). This enables effective and efficient problem solving, dynamic learning, strategic planning and decision making. Knowledge management focuses on identifying knowledge, explicating it in a way so that it can be shared in a formal manner, and thus reusing the same.

According to Bose (2002) KM is defined as a process to manage the knowledge that is most important to the organization. It involves applying the collective knowledge and abilities of the entire workforce to achieve specific organizational objectives. It involves getting the right information to the right people at the right time, and helping people create and share knowledge and act in ways that will measurably improve individual and organizational performance.

From the above mentioned definitions it is very clear that all the authors defined Knowledge Management as a “Process” based on different implementation perspectives.


3.2 Illustration of KM Definitions

Some benefits of KM directly focus on savings, while others on available knowledge depositories within an organization. In today's information-driven economy, companies uncover the most opportunities and ultimately derive the most value from knowledge depositories rather than just physical assets. Working as an ERP Consultant was very difficult to manage the business operations along with the functional operations of the company using ERP systems like Syteline EPR System.

All the departments were integrated into the newly built ERP system based on the functional and business requirements of the company. The ERP system was made available for all the department. Later after 12 -18 months from the date of implementation ERP started giving problems as there was a change in business strategy in the line of pricing the products. As the EPR was developed and implemented by another company. The company which has using was not aware of the scalability of the EPR along the change of business process. This escalated an opportunity for ERP consultants to share the functionality of ERP system with the non-technical and technical staff developing basic knowledge depositories within the existing EPR Systems.

By sharing the ERP knowledge has given an opportunity to

• encouraging the free flow of ideas
• improve response time
• Boosted revenues
• enhanced employee retention rates
• streamline operations and reduce costs by eliminating redundant or unnecessary processes

This creative approach as a result improved efficiency, higher productivity and increased revenues. This scenario has formed a base for defining KM in my own words.


3.3 ANALYSIS OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT DEFINITION

Though there are many definitions of knowledge management. The definition stated by different authors emphasize these three main aspects like

• Systematic Process of Creating Knowledge
• Depositing and Distribution of Knowledge
• Improve organisations efficiency
• In today's information-driven economy, companies uncover the most opportunities and ultimately derive the most value from knowledge depositories rather than just physical assets of the organisation.

Although many approaches are defined to implementing knowledge management within and organization, the primary focus of Knowledge Management is to Create Knowledge or Identify the existing knowledge that are available. Knowledge Management predominantly relying only on humans to create relationships among individual knowledge sources to convert the tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge. In order to support systematic process of knowledge management there is a necessity to integrate some techniques or practices to share knowledge.

This approach helps organisation to develop a systematic process to identify, select, organize, disseminate or transferring Knowledge. The shared knowledge at explicit level will measurably improve individual and organizational performance. Consequently, this enables in enhancing business process of the organisation to achieve specific organizational objectives.

This argument is supported by T. Davenport (1997), Gupta et al., 2000 and Bose (2002).


3.4 REFLECTION FROM PRACTICE

For example, Working as an ERP Consultant in Manufacturing Company was very difficult to manage the business operations along with the functional operations of the company using ERP Systems (See Appendix II, page 32) like Syteline EPR System.

All the departments were integrated into the newly built ERP system i.e Syteline ERP System based on the functional and business requirements of the company. The Syteline ERP system was made available for the entire department. Later after 12 -18 months from the date of implementation ERP started giving problems as there was a change in business strategy in the line of pricing the products. As the Syteline EPR was developed and implemented by another company. The Manufacturing Company using Syteline ERP was not aware of the scalability of the changes with its business process and strategies. This escalated an opportunity for ERP consultants to share the functionality of Syteline ERP system with the non-technical and technical staff developing basic knowledge depositories within the existing EPR Systems.

By sharing the Syteline ERP knowledge has given an opportunity to

• Encouraging the free flow of ideas
• Improved response time
• Boosted revenues
• Enhanced employee retention rates
• Streamline operations and reduce costs by eliminating redundant or unnecessary processes

This creative approach as a result improved efficiency, higher productivity and increased revenues. This scenario has formed a base for defining KM in my own words.


3.5 MY DEFINITION FOR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Knowledge Management ('KM') can be further redefined as a systematic process which comprises a range of practices used by organisations to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge. KM is more about transforming of data into information using IT Systems. The information is stored and made it available for others for future usage.


3.6 REFLECTIONS FROM GROUP LEARNING

The interactions among group members, Hinds F (2008), Bello M (2008) and Azeez T (2008) made me to focus on the predefined definitions and integrate with the real-time experience. This enabled me to understand the definition from different authors and compare with my experience and append more before exhibiting my own definition for KM.

The basic concepts of KM became clear on referring to published articles by Knowledge Gurus and discussing with other colleagues. Based on the above facts here are my learning outcomes are

• Systematic Process of Creating Knowledge
• Depositing and Distribution of Knowledge
• Improve organisations efficiency

Explanation: According to Shaikh S (2008), Bello M (2008) and Iqbal W (2008) defined KM as a process in which conversion of information takes series of steps and gets distributed among individuals. This conversion of information through series of steps can be considered as a process. Hence, KM was described as process. Furthermore, focusing on the definition written by Bello M (2008), who gave his prospective as a practice where it includes the transformation of knowledge from one form to other. For transformation of knowledge it is important to share the information through discussions or any other means. According to Shaikh S (2008) and Kasala P (2008) when the above factors are implemented practically would help in management of knowledge and peaks up the efficiency of organisation.

According to Peter (1992) cited by McAdam and McCreedy (1999) argued that technology plays no role in implementing Knowledge Management. Whereas, Bello M (2008) and Hinds F (2008) argues that technology is not a central part of KM but rather a useful enabler in the process of creating, disseminating and filtering knowledge.

These above discussions and literatures have supported me to conclude my learning outcomes and further aided in deriving my own definition for Knowledge Management.


1.7 REFERENCES

T. Davenport 1997. Working Knowledge, Harvard Business School Press. Retrieved on February 3, 2008 from http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/

Gupta, B., Iyer, L.S., & Aronson, J.E. (2000). “Knowledge Management: Practices And Challenges “. Industrial Management And Data Systems, Vol.100, Nos. 1 And 2. Retrieved on February 4, 2008 from www.tlainc.com/articl66.htm

Felix Weigel, Holger Meuss, Franc¸ois Bry, and Klaus U. Schulz.Content-Aware DataGuides for Indexing Large Collections of XML Documents. Forschungsbericht research report PMS-FB-2003-14, Institute of Informatics, University of Munich, 2003.

McAdam, R and S. McCreedy (1999a) “A Critical Review of Knowledge Management Models”, Retrieved January 27, 2008, from http://www.emeraldinsight.com/

Bose. R (2002), Customer Relationship Management: Key Components for IT success, Industrial Management & Data Systems, 102(2), 89-97.

Kasala, Pavan Kumar (2008), Blog: Pavan Kumar K: Knowledge Resources. Retrieved on January 29, 2008 from http://www.knowledgetechno.blogspot.com/

Shaikh, Samir (2008), Blog: Samir Shaikh- Knowledge Management. Retrieved January 29, 2008 from http://m00188617.blogspot.com/

Iqbal, Waseem (2008), Blog: Waseem: Knowledge management. Retrieved on January 30, 2008 from http://waseemknowledgemanagement.blogspot.com/

Bello, Munir (2008), Blog: Knowledge Management Strategies by Munir Bello. Retrieved on January 30, 2008 from http://mubell.blogspot.com/

Hinds, Fiona (2008), Blog: Knowledge Management Strategies by thinking Souljah. Retrieved on January 30, 2008 from http://souljah-on-knowledge-management.blogspot.com/

Azeez, Tobosun (2008), Blog: Knowledge Management Strategies by Tobosun Azeez. Retrieved on March 10, 2008 from http://tubokms.blogspot.com/